No Arabic abstract
Plasmonic color printing with semicontinuous metal films is a lithography-free, non-fading, and environment-friendly method of generation of bright colors. Such films are comprised of metal nanoparticles, which resonate at different wavelengths upon light illumination depending on the size and shape of the nanoparticles. To achieve an experimentally demonstrated structure that was optimized in terms of broader color range and increased stability, variable Ag semicontinuous metal films were deposited on a metallic mirror with a sub-wavelength-thick dielectric spacer. Femtosecond laser post-processing was then introduced to extend the color gamut through spectrally induced changes from blue to green, red, and yellow. Long-term stability and durability of the structures were addressed to enable non-fading colors with an optimized overcoating dielectric layer. The thickness of the proposed designs is on the order of 100 nanometers, and it can be deposited on any substrate. These structures generate a broad range of long-lasting colors in reflection that can be applied to real-life artistic or technological applications with a spatial resolution on the order of 0.3 mm or less.
Thin coatings of Chromium oxide have been used for applications as absorbing material in solar cells, as protections for magnetic data recording devices and as shields in flexible solar cells. Thin coatings of pure chromium were vacuum deposited on a glass substrate using hot electrons from tungsten filament. These coatings were then treated with a nanosecond and femtosecond laser in ambient conditions. The microstructure, morphology and the color of the coatings treated with laser sources were modified and there was a formation of an oxide layer due to the heat dissipation on the chromium coating from the energetic photons. High-resolution scanning electron microscope studies showed the morphological evolution that are directly correlated with the laser fluence of both the nanosecond and femtosecond lasers. This morphological evolution was accompanied by the microstructural change as observed from the x-ray diffraction patterns, the chromaticity response of the coating was studied by UV-Vis spectrometer and the response of the coating in the visible region evolved with the laser fluences. The Rutherford backscattering depth profiling of the laser treated coatings revealed the diffusion of oxygen atoms in the coating as a result of laser treatment fluence.
We present a new approach to femtosecond direct laser writing lithography to pattern nanocavities in ferromagnetic thin films. To demonstrate the concept we irradiated 300~nm thin nickel films by single intense femtosecond laser pulses through the glass substrate and created complex surface landscapes at the nickel-air interface. Using a fluence above the ablation threshold the process is destructive and irradiation leads to the formation of 200~nm thin flakes of nickel around the ablation crater as seen by electron microscopy. By progressively lowering the peak laser fluence, slightly below the ablation threshold the formation of closed spallation cavities is demonstrated by interferometric microscopy. Systematic studies by electron and optical interferometric microscopies enabled us to gain an understanding of the thermo-mechanical mechanism leading to spallation at the solid-molten interface, a conclusion supported by molecular dynamics simulations. We achieved a control of the spallation process that enabled the fabrication of closed spallation nanocavities and their periodic arrangements. Due to their topology closed magnetic nanocavities can support unique couplings of multiple excitations (magnetic, optical, acoustic, spintronic). Thereby, they offer a unique physics playground, before unavailable, for magnetism, magneto-photonic and magneto-acoustic applications.
We report the first experimental observation of non-adiabatic field-free orientation of a heteronuclear diatomic molecule (CO) induced by an intense two-color (800 and 400 nm) femtosecond laser field. We monitor orientation by measuring fragment ion angular distributions after Coulomb explosion with an 800 nm pulse. The orientation of the molecules is controlled by the relative phase of the two-color field. The results are compared to quantum mechanical rigid rotor calculations. The demonstrated method can be applied to study molecular frame dynamics under field-free conditions in conjunction with a variety of spectroscopy methods, such as high-harmonic generation, electron diffraction and molecular frame photoemission.
We introduce a novel nanofabrication technique to directly deposit catalyst pads for the chemical vapor deposition synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) at any desired position on a substrate by Gallium focused ion beam (FIB) induced deposition of silicon oxide thin films from the metalorganic Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) precursor. A high resolution in the positioning of the SWCNTs is naturally achieved as the imaging and deposition by FIB are conducted concurrently in situ at the same selected point on the substrate. This technique has substantial advantages over the current state-of-the-art methods that are based on complex and multistep lithography processes.
We describe an all-optical lithography process that can be used to make electrical contact to atomic-precision donor devices made in silicon using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). This is accomplished by implementing a cleaning procedure in the STM that allows the integration of metal alignment marks and ion-implanted contacts at the wafer level. Low-temperature transport measurements of a patterned device establish the viability of the process.